Found
by someothersky
Summary: -He was lost, and is found. - Luke 15:24- It's not the Roadhouse, this isn't her life, and maybe she's a little bit thankful for that.


**Title: **Found  
**Author:** Me  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Pairing:** Dean/Ellen  
**Summary: **_It's not the Roadhouse, this isn't her life, and maybe she's a little bit thankful for that._  
**Author's Notes:** Very loosely, _loosely_ based upon Homer's Odyssey (like, this is to the Odyssey what _Clueless_ is to _Emma_). General spoilers for S2 and S3.

_He was lost, and is found.  
_- Luke 15:24

**Found**

It's not the Roadhouse, this isn't her life, and maybe she's a little bit thankful for that. The place is quiet and off the radar, although she knows how little anonymity matters in a profession like hers. Somebody knows somebody else who knows somebody else who knows a demon.

She hasn't heard from anybody since she disappeared, not Bobby, not the Winchester boys, not even her own daughter. She tries not to wonder too much, keeps her mind on the new path she's forged for herself since the Roadhouse burned down.

Nobody in this town knows she used to be married to a hunter, was a hunter herself. They don't know her name was once Ellen Harvelle, that she wasn't just a simple bartender, that she was married to a great man once upon a time. Here, they know her as Penny, a nobody, a nameless, faceless bartender at this dump. It's pretty easy to create a new identity, pretty hard to maintain it, but so far, so good.

Pool balls crack into one another and scatter her thoughts like dead leaves across cracked concrete. One of the barflies catches her eye and offers her a smirk, but she doesn't bite. Ellen ducks her head and scrubs at a smudge on the smooth countertop with the edge of her apron.

"Aw, c'mon, Penny. You've been givin' me the cold shoulder all week," he calls out. "What's it gonna take?"

Ellen squeezes her hands into fists and counts down from twenty, wills the rage away. Finally, she clears her throat and speaks. "When pigs fly, Tony."

Tony leans back on his barstool and claps big hands down on the countertop. "C'mon, sweetheart ñ"

"Don't you ëc'mon, sweetheart' me, Tony." Ellen moves to a different part of the bar and starts scrubbing at marks that aren't really there. She can feel Tony's eyes burning into her, probably picturing what she'd look like naked, and she _feels_ naked.

The sound of bells at the front of the bar and the _whoosh_ of air as the door opens happily distracts her and she looks up to see who's stumbled in. They don't get too many new faces around this place.

Ellen freezes, hands curled into fists on the bar. "_Dean_?"

Though she hadn't kept in touch with Bobby or the Winchester boys after the incident at the Devil's Gate, she'd heard things here and there, through the grapevine. She heard about how Dean had sold his soul, made an unbreakable pact with the Crossroads demon, heard about how Sam hadn't been able to save him.

Dean looks different and the same all at once. The clothes he's wearing are too big for him, and she doesn't even think they're his. He looks like an echo of himself, hollow, faded and worn.

Ellen yanks off her apron and slips out from behind the bar.

"Dean," she says, making her way to him, through a maze of bar patrons, "it's me, Ellen!"

His eyes don't fill with recognition when he sees her, and for a moment, she thinks he doesn't remember her. In the few seconds it takes for her to reach him, she wonders if she's mistaken, if Dean just has a doppelganger running around, or worse yet, if it's an impostor.

Their eyes meet, and the stiffness melts from his limbs.

He blinks and parts his lips, wetting them with his tongue. "Ellen."

His voice sends a chill down her spine. Ellen presses her hands together, steepling her fingers under her chin. "Dean, what ñ I thought you were ñ" Ellen stops herself short, unable to find the right words to say. She reaches up and grips his face briefly in her hands before wrapping him in a warm hug.

Dean allows her the contact, reaching up and ghosting his fingers over her shoulder. "It's been a while." He grates out a short laugh, painful to her ears.

"It's been too long," she says, stepping away to smooth his shirt over his chest. "You look ñ different."

Dean cocks a half-smile. "It's a long story." He shoulders the strap of a duffel bag and reaches into his pocket. "Lemme buy you a drink," he says, pulling out a few crumpled bills.

"All right," she says, turning back to the bar. "I'm up for my cigarette break anyway."

"You work in this dump?" He pauses. "No offense."

"None taken. I'll be right back." Ellen gives him a pat on the chest and hurries back to grab her coat from behind the bar and punch out for her break. Ellen pulls the coat on and heads back to his side.

Dean scans his surroundings before letting his eyes come to rest on her. "Ready to blow this popsicle stand?" Dean offers his arm to her, along with a slight smile.

Ellen chuckles and slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. "As ever."

*

Ellen leads him to her car out back, and they huddle against the heater for warmth. She turns on the radio to a classic rock station and Dean settles back in the passenger's seat, while Ellen digs a pack of cigarettes out of the glove compartment.

"How'd you find me?" she asks, plucking a cigarette free.

"I wasn't looking for you," he says, glancing sideward at her. "Kinda just stumbled on you."

Ellen lights her cigarette and takes a deep drag, letting her eyelids droop. "Awfully big coincidence," she says, on an exhale of smoke, "considering I came here to get away from all of that."

"Funny how it works out sometimes." Dean opens his eyes.

"So, how long've you been ñ" Ellen gestures to him. "You know."

"Not in Hell?" Dean supplies, and Ellen nods. "Few weeks. Tryin' to make my way home."

Ellen taps her cigarette, and gray ash swirls on the air before getting trapped in her hair and on the front of Dean's jacket. "To Sam?"

Dean's eyes flicker. "Home," he says.

Ellen takes another drag, nodding. "You know how you got out?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nah. One day I was in Hell and the next ñ I wasn't," he says, but Ellen isn't sure she believes him entirely. "And here I am."

"And here you are," she says, stubbing out her cigarette and dusting her hands off on her thighs. "What's it like?"

He looks at her, brow furrowing. "What?"

"What's Hell like?"

Dean glances down at his hands. "It's different for everybody."

Ellen reaches out and covers one of his hands with her own, squeezing. He looks up again and they make eye contact. Ice doesn't trickle down her spine, like before. The coldness, the unfamiliarity in his eyes seems to have thawed.

Dean closes his fingers around her hand, and he taps his ring against her own, the one she's never taken off.

Ellen stares at their hands, at the bands of silver and gold flashing in the dark.

When Dean raises his head, Ellen leans in and kisses him. She can taste the smoke on her own breath, and Dean's lips are strangely cool against hers. He reaches up and curls a hand in her hair, kissing back.

Ellen tumbles toward him, like Alice down the rabbit hole, his kisses grow insistent, but not warm. He tugs her toward him, and Ellen goes, reaching under his jacket and shirt, stroking her hands over his back. She feels scarred flesh under her fingertips, and Dean hisses against her mouth.

"Your ñ"

"It's fine," he interrupts, pausing to shrug off the jacket and t-shirt.

In the dim wash of moonlight, Ellen traces the silvery scars grooved into his shoulders with her eyes. She reaches out and touches one of the scars lightly. Dean flinches, but doesn't pull away.

Ellen tries to find something to say, something to fill the silence, but when she and Dean lock eyes again, the words die on her tongue. Dean slides a hand over the back of her neck and pulls her in for another kiss.

Ellen watches Dean as he presses small, firm kisses against her mouth, eyes squinched shut. She cradles him in her arms, carefully, as he kisses her and strokes her fingers through his hair.

"Why," he asks between kisses, reaching under her blouse, walking his fingertips up her stomach, "does your nametag say Penny?"

Ellen laughs into his mouth. "It's a long story."

She feels his mouth curve into a smile against her own.

Dean starts unbuttoning the front of her blouse and pushes it off her shoulders. The plastic nametag comes loose and skitters across the floormat. Ellen crawls into his lap in the passenger seat and Dean arches up to kiss her again.

"How long've we got?" he whispers, unclasping the back of her bra.

Ellen shrugs and smiles, slipping free of the bra. Her hair falls over her shoulder and Dean tugs at one of the curls lightly. "As much time as we need."

He smiles up at her, and she ducks her head to kiss him again.

This isn't her life, no, but she thinks she likes it enough to keep it.


End file.
